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Screening Is Only the Beginning-The Lindsay Clancy Case, Maternal Mental Health, and Why Moms Gone Mental Exists
Content note: This article discusses maternal mental illness, suicide, postpartum psychosis, intrusive thoughts, and the deaths of children. It intentionally avoids graphic details.
There are some stories that are almost impossible to talk about.
The Lindsay Clancy case is one of them.
Three children died.
A mother had been struggling psychiatrically for months.
A father lost his entire family as he knew it.
And now a courtroom is being asked to determine something extraordinarily complicated: what was happening inside Lindsay Clancy's mind on January 24, 2023?
Was she experiencing psychosis?
Was she criminally responsible?
Did medications contribute to her deterioration?
Did the healthcare system adequately recognize and respond to the complexity of her condition?
There are experts testifying on both sides of those questions.
I am not one of them.
I have never evaluated Lindsay Clancy. I have not reviewed her complete medical record. I did not participate in her treatment.
I am also not interested in turning three children's deaths into entertainment or another true crime story.
I am interested in what happened before.
Because long before Lindsay Clancy became a defendant in a murder trial, she was a postpartum mother struggling with her mental health.
She was a patient.
She was receiving treatment.
She was filling out screening forms.
She was reporting symptoms.
She was trying medications.
She was seeing multiple healthcare professionals.
She was eventually hospitalized.
And somewhere in that story is a much larger conversation about how we care for mothers.
That is the conversation I want Moms Gone Mental to be part of.
This is why Moms Gone Mental exists
When we created Moms Gone Mental, it wasn't because mothers needed another place telling them how to be better mothers.
There are plenty of those.
We created it because motherhood can be incredibly isolating, and the parts we struggle with most are often the parts nobody wants to say out loud.
"I don't feel like myself."
"I love my baby, but I don't feel happy."
"I can't shut my brain off."
"I'm having thoughts that scare me."
"I'm overwhelmed."
"I don't know if this is normal."
"I filled out the depression questionnaire, but nobody really talked to me about it." - This exact scenario happened to me, at 6 weeks postpartum.
"I told someone I wasn't okay, and somehow I still went home feeling completely alone."
Those are the conversations we need to have.
Not to frighten mothers.
To make it safer for mothers to speak.
Because maternal mental health awareness isn't simply about recognizing postpartum depression.
It is about creating a culture in which a mother can say, "Something is wrong," and know that somebody is going to keep listening until we understand what that means.
May 2022: A baby is born
Lindsay's third child, Callan, was born in May 2022.
In the months that followed, Lindsay began experiencing increasing anxiety, insomnia, depression, difficulty functioning, and a growing sense that she was not herself.
The evidence does not establish that she was psychotic throughout this period. In fact, when or whether psychosis emerged is one of the central disputes in her trial.
What we do know is that her distress did not begin on January 24.
It developed over time.
And I think that matters because serious maternal mental health conditions do not always announce themselves dramatically.
Sometimes they whisper first.
"I can't sleep."
"I can't stop worrying."
"I feel disconnected."
"I don't feel like myself."
"I'm overwhelmed."
Those statements can be part of adjusting to motherhood.
They can also be symptoms of depression, anxiety, postpartum OCD, bipolar spectrum illness, medication effects, a medical condition, or another problem requiring further evaluation.
We have normalized maternal exhaustion and distress so thoroughly that sometimes we forget to ask:
How much is too much?
September 2022: She enters psychiatric treatment
By September, Lindsay was receiving outpatient psychiatric treatment.
Trial reporting describes an elevated Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale score during her early treatment.
The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, commonly called the EPDS, is something many mothers know well.
You sit in an OB office with your newborn.
You're exhausted.
You're probably thinking about when the baby last ate.
Someone hands you a form.
You answer questions about anxiety, sadness, coping, sleep, and thoughts of self harm.
Someone calculates a score.
And then what?
That last part matters.
Because I have my own story with that questionnaire.
After my first child, I reportedly had the same elevated EPDS score attributed to Lindsay during her early treatment.
And nothing happened.
No meaningful conversation.
No significant follow up.
No one sat down and said:
"Joy, this score tells me we need to talk."
I went home.
I'm not sharing that because my experience was the same as Lindsay Clancy's.
It wasn't.
I'm sharing it because this is exactly the problem with confusing screening with intervention.
We can screen every mother in America.
If nobody meaningfully responds to the result, we haven't solved maternal mental health.
We've documented it.
There is a difference.
Screening is only the beginning
The EPDS is a valuable screening tool.
It is not a diagnosis.
It cannot tell us by itself whether someone has postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar disorder, psychosis, or another condition.
A screening score is supposed to open a door.
What are you experiencing?
How much are you sleeping?
Are you able to function?
Are you having intrusive thoughts?
Do those thoughts frighten you?
Do you want them?
Do you believe them?
Are you suicidal?
Do you feel safe caring for yourself and your baby?
Do you feel like yourself?
Has your partner noticed that something has changed?
Could bipolar disorder be part of this presentation?
Could something medical be contributing?
When will I see you again?
Who is following this?
That last question matters more than we realize.
October: "I can't sleep"
By October, trial reporting describes Lindsay as experiencing severe anxiety and significant difficulty sleeping.
Medications were being prescribed and changed in an attempt to address anxiety, depression, and insomnia.
But sleep deserves more attention in maternal mental healthcare.
When a mother says:
"I can't sleep."
I want us to get curious.
Is your baby preventing you from sleeping?
Or is someone else holding your sleeping baby while you lie awake unable to turn your brain off?
Are you exhausted?
Or do you suddenly feel like you don't need sleep?
Are your thoughts racing?
Are you afraid to close your eyes?
Are you checking your baby repeatedly?
Are you becoming confused?
Has your behavior changed?
Are you becoming fearful of things that never frightened you before?
Sleep is not simply something to fix.
Sometimes sleep is information.
November and December: The picture becomes complicated
Over the following months, Lindsay's treatment became increasingly complex.
Public reporting indicates that approximately 13 psychiatric medications were prescribed or trialed across several months.
They reportedly included sertraline, lorazepam, buspirone, trazodone, fluoxetine, zolpidem, mirtazapine, clonazepam, quetiapine, diazepam, lamotrigine, amitriptyline, and antihistamine based medications used for sleep or anxiety.
I want to make an important distinction.
That does not mean Lindsay was taking 13 medications simultaneously.
Some were brief trials.
Some were stopped.
Some were replaced.
Some may have been used only as needed.
Medications prescribed are not necessarily medications taken.
And medication changes do not automatically mean someone received inappropriate care.
Psychiatric medications sometimes don't work.
Side effects happen.
Diagnoses evolve.
People respond differently.
But there is an important lesson here that extends far beyond Lindsay Clancy.
When someone continues deteriorating despite treatment, we have to remain curious.
Do we still understand what we are treating?
Has something changed?
Could this be bipolar disorder?
Could medication effects be contributing?
Could withdrawal from something recently stopped be relevant?
Are all of the providers working from the same medication list?
Is everyone working from the same diagnosis?
Does this patient need a higher level of care?
Does she need a specialist?
Does she need another opinion?
At some point, the question cannot simply be:
"What medication should we try next?"
It also needs to be:
"Do we understand what is happening to this person?"
Her writings remind us there was a person underneath the chart
Lindsay kept journals during this period.
According to testimony describing those writings, she wrote about feeling overwhelmed.
She described brain fog.
She struggled with sleep and appetite.
She became intensely focused on her baby's sleep.
She described guilt, depression, and wanting relief from what she was experiencing.
Those writings do not diagnose her.
They do not establish psychosis.
They do not determine criminal responsibility.
But they document something important.
A mother was struggling.
And sometimes I think healthcare turns people into lists.
Depression.
Anxiety.
Insomnia.
Medication.
Dose increase.
Medication discontinued.
New medication.
Follow up in two weeks.
But behind that list is a human being trying to function.
We cannot lose the person inside the chart.
Then there is the issue of fragmented care
This may be one of the biggest lessons we can take from this case without assigning blame to any individual clinician.
Lindsay received care across multiple providers and treatment settings.
One clinician may have been treating anxiety.
Another may have been addressing sleep.
Another may have adjusted medication.
Another evaluated suicidality.
Another saw her during hospitalization.
Another resumed treatment afterward.
This happens every day.
And patients often assume:
"My doctors are talking to each other."
Sometimes they aren't.
Sometimes one clinician doesn't have the hospital records yet.
Sometimes the psychiatrist doesn't know what another prescriber changed.
Sometimes the therapist assumes the prescriber knows something.
Sometimes everybody has one piece of the story.
And the person responsible for carrying the complete story from appointment to appointment is the patient who is currently too sick to carry it.
That is not sustainable.
We need better communication between obstetrics, primary care, psychiatry, therapy, emergency departments, inpatient units, and perinatal specialists. It is our responsibility as healthcare providers to obtain records from other offices.
Maternal mental health cannot belong to one specialty.
Mothers need a healthcare team, not a collection of disconnected appointments.
Psychiatry doesn't stop at the neck
There is another piece of self advocacy that I want mothers to understand.
Mental health symptoms can sometimes have medical contributors.
Thyroid dysfunction can affect mood, anxiety, energy, sleep, cognition, and other aspects of functioning.
Metabolic abnormalities, anemia, nutritional deficiencies, infection, autoimmune conditions, medication effects, substance exposure, neurologic conditions, and other medical problems can sometimes produce or worsen psychiatric symptoms.
That does not mean every mother with postpartum anxiety needs an enormous laboratory workup.
And it absolutely does not mean that a thyroid or metabolic disorder caused what happened in the Clancy case.
In fact, trial testimony reportedly indicates that Lindsay had thyroid testing through other healthcare settings and that those results were described as normal. However, thyroid testing can be repeated and postpartum thyroiditis can occur after birth, regardless of previous thyroid levels. This happened to me. Postpartum thyroiditis was missed initially.
The lesson is broader.
Mental healthcare still needs healthcare.
When symptoms are new, severe, unusual, rapidly changing, or not responding as expected, it is reasonable to ask:
"Could anything medical be contributing to this?"
"Do my symptoms warrant lab work?"
"Has my thyroid been checked?"
"Could one of my medications be contributing?"
"Can we review everything I'm taking?"
"Does this diagnosis still make sense?"
"Would a perinatal psychiatrist be appropriate?"
"Should I get another opinion?"
Those aren't difficult patient questions.
Those are informed patient questions.
You are allowed to ask for another opinion
I wish more people knew this.
Getting a second opinion does not mean you don't trust your healthcare provider.
It does not mean you're being difficult.
And it doesn't mean you're diagnosing yourself.
Sometimes another clinician sees something differently.
Sometimes your symptoms have changed since the original diagnosis.
Sometimes a specialist has experience your general provider doesn't have.
Sometimes you simply need somebody to look at the entire story again.
A good clinician will welcome a second opinion and will welcome more collaboration from local providers.
It is more than okay to advocate for yourself and disagree, or question your treatment plan.
If your partner keeps telling you that you don't seem like yourself, tell her clinician.
If your medications keep changing and you don't understand why, ask.
If something doesn't feel right, you are allowed to say:
"I need someone to look at this again."
Intrusive thoughts need to be something mothers can talk about
This part is especially important.
Having an intrusive thought does not mean you are going to hurt your baby.
Postpartum anxiety and OCD can involve frightening, unwanted thoughts.
A mother can love her baby deeply and suddenly experience an image or thought that horrifies her.
Intrusive thoughts are designed to be intruders and unwanted. Remember, our thoughts are not always the truth.
Psychosis is different.
Psychosis can involve impaired reality testing, hallucinations, delusional beliefs, paranoia, confusion, or disorganization.
But if we make mothers believe that saying:
"I'm having scary thoughts"
automatically means:
"Someone will take my baby away,"
mothers will stop telling us.
We need to create enough safety for someone to say the frightening thing.
Then clinicians need to ask:
Does this thought scare you?
Do you want it to happen?
Do you believe it?
Do you feel compelled to act on it?
Do you feel in control?
Are you hearing someone telling you what to do?
Are you hearing voices of someone who isn't there?
That conversation can tell us far more than a checkbox ever will.
Families need to know what to look for too
Maternal mental health education cannot stop with the mother.
Partners need it.
Friends need it.
Sometimes the person struggling cannot recognize how much she has changed.
Pay attention when someone says:
"She isn't herself."
Not as a diagnosis.
As information.
What changed?
Her sleep?
Her speech?
Her personality?
Her judgment?
Her beliefs?
Her ability to make decisions?
Her ability to function?
Her connection to reality?
Instead of only asking a new mother:
"How's the baby?"
Maybe we need to get much better at asking:
"How are you?"
And then actually waiting for the answer.
And healthcare providers, we have work to do too
Screen.
But then respond.
Ask about depression.
Ask about anxiety.
Ask about intrusive thoughts without judgment.
Ask about suicide.
Ask about thoughts involving the baby.
Ask about sleep in detail.
Ask for clarification on every. single. question.
Tell me more about how you're feeling
Know the difference between unwanted intrusive thoughts and impaired reality testing.
Screen for bipolar disorder when clinically appropriate.
Ask about personal and family psychiatric history.
Consider medical contributors when the presentation warrants it.
Review medications.
Revisit the diagnosis when someone isn't improving.
Communicate with the other people treating the patient.
Pay attention when a partner says:
"This isn't her."
And when someone leaves an emergency department or psychiatric hospital, make sure somebody knows what happens next.
We cannot continue creating systems where everybody is responsible for one piece of a mother and nobody is responsible for the whole mother.
Three children remain at the center of this story
Cora.
Dawson.
Callan.
Nothing about advocating for maternal mental healthcare minimizes their lives.
Nothing about examining a healthcare system excuses what happened to them.
And nothing I write here determines Lindsay Clancy's criminal responsibility.
Those children deserved to grow up.
Their father deserved to watch them grow up.
There is enormous grief at the center of this case.
Compassion is not a finite resource.
We can grieve three children.
We can have compassion for a father.
We can care about a mother who was psychiatrically struggling.
We can respect a jury's responsibility to determine criminal responsibility.
And we can still look at the healthcare system and ask:
How do we make the next family's story different?
Those things do not have to compete.
This is our call to action
I don't want the legacy of cases like this to be that mothers become afraid of postpartum mental illness.
I want the opposite.
I want us talking about it.
I want a mother to know the difference between postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, bipolar disorder, and psychosis.
I want partners to know that dramatic changes in sleep and behavior deserve attention.
I want OB offices to screen.
And then I want someone to respond.
I want psychiatric providers to have access to obstetric records.
I want hospitals communicating with outpatient clinicians.
I want primary care involved.
I want appropriate medical causes considered.
I want mothers encouraged to ask questions.
I want second opinions normalized.
I want perinatal psychiatric specialists accessible before somebody reaches a crisis.
I want women to know that saying "I'm not okay" is enough reason to keep asking for help.
And I want healthcare systems to stop measuring success by whether a screening form was completed.
The question shouldn't be:
"Did we screen her?"
The question should be:
"What happened after she screened positive?"
Did someone listen?
Did someone assess?
Did someone follow up?
Did somebody notice when the symptoms changed?
Did the providers communicate?
Did the patient understand her diagnosis and medications?
Did she know when to seek emergency care?
Did her family know what to watch for?
And did someone continue asking:
"Are you getting better?"
This is Moms Gone Mental
Moms Gone Mental exists because mothers deserve somewhere to have conversations that are uncomfortable.
The ones we whisper.
The ones we Google at 2 a.m.
The ones we are afraid to tell our partners.
The ones we sometimes don't even know how to explain to our healthcare providers.
We aren't here to diagnose mothers through a podcast or a blog.
We aren't here to replace therapy, psychiatry, obstetric care, or emergency treatment.
We're here to make it easier to start the conversation.
We're here to give mothers language for experiences they may not understand.
We're here to remind women that maternal mental health is health.
We're here to tell the mom sitting in an exam room filling out an Edinburgh questionnaire:
Your answers matter.
And if you hand that questionnaire back and nobody asks another question?
You are allowed to ask one.
If you still aren't okay?
Go back.
If you are getting worse?
Keep advocating. or asking someone to.
If the diagnosis doesn't seem to fit anymore?
Ask whether it needs to be reconsidered.
If you are frightened by what is happening inside your own mind?
Tell a trusted friend the real version.
And for those of us working in healthcare, our responsibility is to create a system safe enough for mothers to do exactly that.
Because maternal mental health awareness cannot end with telling women to ask for help.
We also have to build systems capable of hearing them when they do.
That is why we are talking about this.
That is why we keep talking about the uncomfortable parts of motherhood.
And that is why Moms Gone Mental exists.
I have attached a Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Screening tool to educate what the screening may look like and the information on it. This is not a diagnostic tool and does not replace speaking to your healthcare provider. Free to download!
Also a link to take this online:
Your friendly neighborhood therapist,
Joy
Moms Gone Mental is a community and educational resource. This article does not diagnose Lindsay Clancy, determine whether any clinician met or departed from a professional standard of care, or offer an opinion on criminal responsibility. Descriptions of her symptoms and treatment are based on publicly reported testimony and court proceedings, and some facts and interpretations remain disputed. The trial remained ongoing as of August 23, 2026. This article is not a substitute for individualized medical or mental health care. Symptoms involving loss of reality testing, severe confusion, hallucinations, delusional beliefs, imminent self harm, or risk of harm to a child require immediate emergency evaluation.
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